Dickson Tan Jing Yun will spend 80 months in a jail after running a Ponzi scheme. He had received a total of $6M from 46 investors, but paid out only $1.5M. What an asshole! How can such a Dick (sorry, can't resist) sleep at night?!

A former insurance agent was sentenced on Wednesday to 80 months' jail after running a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme, between 2004 and 2008.

A Ponzi scheme takes place when somebody makes use of monies obtained from investors to pay off returns to earlier ones.

Thirty-seven-year-old Dickson Tan Jing Yun had received a total of about S$6 million from 46 investors.

But he paid out only about S$1.5 million to them.

The remaining sum totalling more than S$4.5 million was either lost in the course of trading or converted for his personal use.

Tan ran the Ponzi scheme as a sideline to his insurance job.

He had pleaded guilty to 10 counts of criminal breach of trust (CBT) and one count of carrying on a fund management business without holding a capital markets licence.

Twenty-two other CBT charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Tan admitted he had misappropriated S$1.37 million in all.

Deputy public prosecutor Christopher Ong told the court that Tan had not made any restitution other than the some-S$1.5 million which he had earlier paid out to investors.

DPP Ong also said one-third of those who invested with Tan were not educated beyond secondary school level.

Tan had earlier informed his victims that he would invest their money in futures trading.

This would be done through his personal futures trading accounts with a company known as Phillip Futures.

He told them he would manage these investments.

Tan also promised his investors guaranteed fixed returns from 10 to 13 per cent per annum.

In his mitigation plea, Tan's lawyer, Noor Mohamed Marican, had said his client had lost almost everything as a result of the trading activities.

Mr Marican also said Tan had lost about a million dollars of his own funds in the investments as well as money belonging to his 68-year-old father.

However, senior district judge See Kee Oon said that Tan's offences warranted a deterrent sentence, saying that Tan had played a "confidence trick repeated many times over on potential unsuspecting victims".

A MAN who ran a large Ponzi scheme by promising high returns to his investors in futures trading was jailed for 80 months on Wednesday. Dickson Tan Jing Yun took nearly $6 million in investment funds from 46 people from September 2004 to October 2008.

He paid out only $1.5 million to the investors, including principal repayments. No other restitution has been made, with $4.5 million lost either through trading or personal use.

Tan, 37, pleaded guilty last week to running a business of fund management without holding a capital markets services licence between 2004 and 2008. He also admitted to 10 charges of criminal breach of trust of $1.2 million, of which $834,332 or 67 per cent of the total sum were dishonestly converted to his own use.

Senior District Judge See Kee Oon, who took another 22 charges into consideration, agreed with Deputy Public Prosecutor Christopher Ong Siu Jin that there were aggravating features in the case which called for a stiff sentence.

'The premise was to lure additional investors to join the scheme while seemingly making good on initial promises of guaranteed fixed returns - essentially a confidence trick repeated many times over on potential unsuspecting victims,'' said the judge. He said Tan clearly planned his offences, and had systematically repeated his pattern of offending, A number of his clients were not well-educated and a few were above 50 years old.

Tan was an insurance agent in 2004 when he ran the scheme on the sidelines. He then joined another company as an associate manager and his last appointment was a branch manager with an insurance broker December 2007.